Saturday, July 23, 2011

I have been working on a Christmas Placemat that I will be teaching my club to make next month. This is from a McCall's Quilting magazine, December 2007. I modified the pattern dimensions a little to accomodate paper piecing the Santa.
This is the placemat before it is quilted and bound - I guess it is a flimsy placemat.

The pattern called for a fabric bow to be tied to the hat. While it was cute, I did not particular want that on my placemats, so I have been auditioning different things to put on the Santa cap.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Finally, I finished quilting all the stars on my Circus Stars quilt and have moved on to the borders! Can hear a big HURRAH out there? Seems like it has taken forever to get this far, but I must admit a tinge of sadness when I finished that last star, we've become good buddies, the quilt and I.

So anyway, I thought I would show some pictures of the quilting I am doing on the border. I am keeping it pretty simple. Since I am calling the quilt Circus Stars, I thought it should have rings around the border - and the corners should have 3 rings, like a 3 ring circus. Now I probably did not not need to explain that you you smart ladies and gents, but my daughter did wonder if anyone would "get it?" And in circus style - you will note that I am doing "jumbo" quilting stitches which I also think is suitable for a circus named quilt (and that's my story and I am sticking with it.)

Here is the pattern on the border, like I said, it is simple.

You can probably see the pattern a little better on the back side of the quilt, I know the jumbo stitches sure show up better. I am using #8 YLI pearl cotton in variagated colors. This thread is a joy to work with.

And here are views of the border corners, front and back.

Quilting the border is going fairly fast compared to the stars, and I have had lots of time this since last evening. I took a little tumble yesterday, and hurt my foot, so I am trying to stay off it for a day or so. Nothing broken, at least I don't think so, but thanks to the quick thinking of my daughter, Ellen, who put a bag of frozen blackeye peas on my foot, there is very little swelling (wonder if her distaste of blackeye peas had anything to do with her choice?)

A word of advise, it doesn't matter if you love your crocs, and you have had them for 5 years, and they aren't torn up - throw them away!! Once they get smooth on the bottom, they slide on wet surfaces, or even dry surfaces if the bottoms of the croc are wet.